An example of a method and a module of this type has already been described in the international patent application no. WO 2004/063065, to which reference will be made hereinafter for all elements not explicitly mentioned or illustrated in the present description.
According to the above document, flat items are stored on a substantially flat rotating support element (or plate), using for example a pair of ribbons or films which are wound on the plate to retain each item on the two faces of the plate.
The solution proposed in the preceding international patent application offers the possibility of substantially flat storage of many types of materials, in particular banknotes, but the same principles apply to any other type of support, be it paper, plastic, metal or similar. The documents or supports that can be treated can have the form of a single sheet, a sheet folded in two or more parts, or documents formed of several pages and can also be enclosed in envelopes or similar containers.
The type of module described in the preceding international application has been advantageously used in various applications, both individually and combined with other similar or identical modules, also in different equipment for the production of new more or less complex machines or also in new versions of machines already existing on the market.
After each storage phase, in which each item is placed on top of those already retained on the faces of the plate, the thickness of the “magazine”, consisting of the plate and the items retained on it, increases significantly in the direction of the faces but not in the direction of the edges of the plate. For example, if banknotes are stored, the thickness of each banknote is approximately 0.1 mm, while each of the two ribbons or films is approximately 0.020 mm (20 microns). If 100 banknotes are deposited on each face of the plate, each retained between two ribbons, the thickness in the direction of each of the flat or convex faces of the plate will be approximately 14 mm while the thickness along each of the edges will be only approximately 4 mm.
It has been found that, as the dimensions of the magazine increase, two important effects occur:                a shifting of the position of the banknotes towards the edges with respect to the flat or convex faces of the plate;        the need for an increasing amount of ribbon as a result of the semi-perimeter of the polygonal shape formed by the banknotes deposited on the plate and by the ribbon (or ribbons) that envelop them.        
This occurs whether one single ribbon or two are wound on the plate.
These variations can be predicted and consequently controlled or compensated for via appropriate programming of the module control unit, when the same is used for single banknotes or in any case supports/documents all having at least the same thickness. In fact, positioning of the banknotes at the edges of the plate must be avoided, otherwise the advantages relating to the storage capacity and conservation of the banknotes in a flat condition are lost.
Different forms of control must be provided when the objects to be stored have a thickness which varies and cannot be predicted beforehand.
For example, in applications such as timed safes, it is envisaged that fixed sums will be deposited each time (e.g. C= 1,000) independently of the denominations making up said sums. Consequently a deposit could consist of two C= 500 banknotes and the following one of one hundred C= 10 banknotes, or in general of wads for a fixed pre-set amount but consisting of an undefined number of mixed banknotes.
In view of the above, the aim of the present invention is to propose a method and a module for storing and dispensing flat items which permits the correct positioning of flat items on a rotating support element, or plate, independently of the variability in thickness of the flat items stored or dispensed.
A particular object of the present invention is to propose a method and a module of the type described above which permits correct storing and dispensing not only of single banknotes but also of wads of banknotes independently of the number of banknotes that make up each wad.
A further object of the present invention is to propose a module that can be easily integrated with, or can replace, similar modules already installed in a machine for storing and dispensing flat items such as banknotes or the like.